When the Cradle Falls
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: AU followup to "The Grand Gesture". Casey beat on Severide's apartment door with both fists. Kelly opened the door, looking confused. "Help me! I want to kill myself!" Casey told him hopelessly. Kelly never heard Casey talk like this before and it scared him. "What happened, Casey? What's wrong?" Casey sucked in a hard breath as he tearfully explained, "My life is over!"
1. Chapter 1

When the Cradle Falls

Matt Casey sat behind the wheel of his pickup truck in the parking lot of the doctor's office he had just left. It was a sunny day, just slightly breezy, compared to most of the weather Chicago had it was a beautiful day, but the world had suddenly ceased to hold any beauty in it where Casey was concerned. It was suddenly an alien place he was no longer a part of.

It had started off so simple, so routine, go to the doctor, fill out a form, get some tests done. What could possibly go wrong? And yet, if he hadn't at least _suspected_ something was wrong, he knew he wouldn't have gone, he wouldn't have talked to the doctor, he wouldn't have asked for the tests. Suspecting was one thing, but actually knowing the truth, that was something else entirely and he felt like his whole world had fallen away.

The doctor's diagnosis still rang in his ears, but none of it seemed to be real. It was just too horrible to be real. This happened to other people, not him. It was like a bad dream, he wanted to wake up from it but he knew he wouldn't. This was a real life nightmare. For several minutes he just sat there replaying his conversation with the doctor in his head, and what it all meant. How could it be true? It just couldn't be, this couldn't be happening, not to him. As tempted as he was, in light of the earth shattering news he'd received, to put his truck in gear and just charge it head on into a wall, and put himself out of this newfound misery, he knew that wouldn't solve anything. He knew he had to get out of there, but go where? Do what? This was the last thing he wanted to tell anybody, and yet somewhere in his mind he knew he had to. He _had_ to tell somebody. But again, who? Who did he trust with something this painful? Boden seemed the first answer, but Casey couldn't go to him with this. None of the other guys from 51 seemed too likely either, who then? Casey felt his heart racing and his blood pounding in his ears, he thought he was going to lose his mind if he just stayed there, he had to go somewhere, had to see somebody, had to tell somebody what he'd found out. Finally, he decided Severide might be his best bet. He didn't have any idea what Kelly would say, but he hoped his best friend would be able to prove _some_ comfort to him, at least make him quit feeling like he was losing his mind. The next question was, could he drive from the doctor's office to Severide's apartment without crashing? He decided it didn't matter, if he did crash his truck, his suffering would be over, but he just couldn't stay there any longer. He started his truck, put it in gear and drove out of there and somehow made his way halfway across the city.

He didn't remember driving through the city, he didn't remember the traffic on the road, he didn't remember stopping at any lights. He didn't even remember pulling up outside Kelly's apartment building. He had no recollection of getting out of his truck and actually entering the building, it just seemed he was suddenly there. He forewent the elevator, there was no way he could hold still long enough to get up to Severide's floor. He ran up the stairs, feeling like he wasn't even in his body, almost like he was out of it watching himself. He heard himself panting as he took the stairs two and three at a time, he was _aware_ of the pain in his chest and ribs but he wasn't aware of actually feeling it. Finally he reached Kelly's floor, and marched over to the apartment door and beat on it with both fists. He had no concept of time for how long he stood there pounding on the door, but it felt like it took forever before he heard the chain rattling on the other side and the bolt being undone. Kelly held the door open, looking totally confused, and had just opened his mouth to say something, when Casey felt his legs go weak and he just about fell against Severide.

"Help me!" was the first thing that found its way out of his mouth. He hardly even knew which way was up anymore. He did fall against Kelly, who automatically caught him in his arms and held him tight so they didn't both hit the floor.

There wasn't any good way to break the news to Kelly about what was going on. Casey felt his chest and throat tightening as the tears started to come, and he didn't have any strength or even interest to try and hold them back. He threw his arms around Severide and desperately clung to him and told him hopelessly, "Help me, I want to kill myself!" The sobs were already coming.

Kelly was totally lost about what was happening, but he'd never heard Casey talk like that before and it scared the hell out of him. A dozen different worst case scenarios were running through his mind as he held onto his friend and asked him, "What happened, Casey? What's wrong?"

Casey sucked in a hard breath as he tearfully explained, "I just got the worst news possible. My life is over!"

* * *

It was two hours later, Severide had managed to drag Casey past his door, and the two made it to the kitchen where Casey collapsed at the table, and the two of them killed a six-pack of beer as Kelly slowly got the full story from Casey. When it was all said and done, Severide didn't know what to make of it. He felt numb and in a state of shock by Casey's news, he was heartbroken for his friend but one of them had to be the strong one right now and Casey didn't have any energy left for that. Casey was slumped over his side of the table, a half drunk bottle of beer beside him, his face buried against the tabletop and his arms wrapped over his head as he continued to cry. He'd been like that for half an hour now, words beyond his current abilities.

Kelly was aware anything he said could easily be the wrong thing, so he chose his words carefully. He didn't _think_ it was possible to upset Casey anymore than he already was, but he didn't want to chance it.

"I don't suppose there's any point in going to another doctor and getting a second opinion, is there?" he asked.

Casey's whole body shook as he sobbed, and shook his head.

"But he could be wrong," Kelly offered a slim ray of hope. "It happens, it's happened before."

Casey just barely raised his head up and told Kelly, "They're definite about it..." he shook his head, "there's no hope for me." He dropped his head back down as a new series of sobs wracked his body.

Kelly reached across the table and sympathetically patted Casey's back, "I'm sorry, buddy. I never thought this could happen."

There was a knock at the door, Casey's cries were the only sound in the apartment, even over that Kelly was able to hear Gabby's voice muffled through the door.

"Oh my God," Casey gasped as he sat up in his chair, "I can't see her, I can't tell her this."

Kelly patted Casey's hand and told him, "You don't have to." He pushed his chair back and got up.

"No, Kelly, don't."

"I'll handle this," Severide told him, "you stay here, it'll be alright."

Casey shook his head. "No it won't." But he couldn't bring himself to get up, to go with Kelly to the door, to face what was coming, he just couldn't.

Severide crossed through the living room to the front door and opened it. Gabby Dawson stood there with a grin on her face that only looked warm and friendly, but anybody who knew her as long as they did knew it actually meant there was more brewing than she was going to tell him about and she was just putting up a nice front until she got out of there. Kelly knew that they'd had an argument about something the other day and Gabby had stormed out, and whatever it was she wasn't going to tell him of all people about, more likely she was going to keep what she was really thinking in reserve until she and Matt were alone. Or so she thought anyway.

"Hey, Severide," she said in her normal borderline perky tone, "I saw Matt's pickup downstairs, is he here?"

Kelly stood with his feet shoulder length apart like he was about to get into it. He looked at her with eyes that were hard but didn't reveal much emotion. "Yeah," he said in a tone that didn't reveal anything either.

She waited a couple seconds, then asked, "Can I come in?"

"No," Kelly answered in the same monotone voice, his eyes still boring into her, and she was still largely oblivious to it.

Gabby let out a small giggle like she didn't get the joke, so she tried again, "Okay, can you get him?"

"No," Kelly repeated in the same tone, his eyes harder now, and it was slowly starting to dawn on Gabby that something was wrong, the smile slowly dropped from her face and was replaced with an expression of confusion.

"What's going on, Kelly?" she asked.

"He knows, Gabby," Severide responded simply, as if that explained everything.

The muscles in Gabby's face continued to drift downward as her eyebrows furrowed together in even further confusion. "Knows what? What're you talking about, Severide?"

"He _knows_ , Gabby," Kelly repeated, venom in his tone now, "He knows the baby you lost wasn't his."

Gabby blinked. "Ex-cuse me?"

Kelly nodded his head stiffly, "He knows he wasn't the father. You put him through all that, have him worried to death about you...and it wasn't even his kid."

Gabby's eyes widened, a look between confusion and rage, "What're you talking about?"

"Gabby, he went to the doctor, he can't have kids!" Kelly told her.

Gabby's eyes widened to maximum capacity and the muscles in her jaw laxed and she stood there with a look of total shock as the color went out of her face.

"You..." Kelly stabbed an accusing finger at her, "You're always bitching to Casey about trust and communication and respect... _and you cheated on him_!"

Gabby closed her mouth and shook her head, "That's not true..."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Kelly wanted to know. "You've been chasing after him ever since he and Hallie broke up, when they got back together you went after Mills as a placeholder, and ever since you two _did_ get together you've done nothing but treat him like crap, then you have the balls to act offended anytime he does something you don't like, and you _cheated_ on him and got pregnant! Who was it? Mills? Halstead? Cordova? No, don't tell me, I can't be disgusted with another person right now as much as I am with you! We've known each other for years, Gabby, we're supposed to be able to count on each other...he was supposed to be able to trust you!"

With that, Kelly slammed the door in Gabby's face and stormed off back to the kitchen.

Casey hadn't moved from where he sat slumped face-down against the table, his back rose and dropped rapidly as he still cried. Kelly felt awful, he padded over to the table and wrapped an arm around Casey and told him, "I'm sorry. I just couldn't take it anymore."

Every breath entering and exiting Casey's body at that moment took the form of a high pitched sob, just about to start hyperventilating.

"Maybe I should've handled that better," Kelly said as he sat back down across from Casey, "but I'm just sick from this. I am so sorry, Casey, I swear I had no idea, if I had...I would've told you to get away from her, _fast_."

Casey tried to force some air back into his body and hold onto it, he struggled to form actual words as he folded his arms on the table and sat up enough to look over at Kelly, "It was all a lie, wasn't it?"

"Probably so," Kelly shook his head, "I'm sorry."

"She never...she couldn't...how could she..."

"You gotta calm down, buddy," Kelly reached across the table and cupped Casey's jaw in his hand, "making yourself sick isn't gonna help you."

As if in response to that comment, a particularly loud sob worked its way loose as Casey lost hold of the air he'd sucked in.

"Casey, I am so sorry, about all of this...I know how much you've always wanted kids."

Casey cupped his hands against his face which muffled the sounds of his crying but it was still enough to rip Kelly's heart out listening and watching his best friend going through this.

* * *

A couple hours later the sun was going down and the city outside was getting dark. Casey still hadn't moved from the kitchen table, he just sat there and stared at the tabletop, not even able to raise his head enough to look at Kelly. Severide had scarcely left Casey's side except to get up and start dinner. He knew Casey wouldn't have much of an appetite but he also knew not eating wasn't going to help his friend any. He heated up a can of soup and made a couple of sandwiches, then dished it up and set one plate in front of Casey and sat across from him with his own.

"Come on, Casey, you gotta eat."

Matt murmured something under his breath and just stared at the food.

"Just take a few bites, you're going to make yourself sick and that's just going to make things worse."

Casey pressed one balled up hand against his cheek and stared down at the bowl of soup and asked lowly, "How could things get any worse than this?" He finally found the strength to sit up straight, he looked around the room, couldn't quite bring himself to look at Kelly yet. "I can't have kids...and my wife cheated on me and got pregnant by someone else...I don't even know which one of those hurts more, or which one is supposed to."

Severide dipped a spoon in his soup and asked, "How did you figure it out anyway?" Casey had already explained all that earlier, or tried to, but a lot had been lost in the translation because he was crying too hard to be fully coherent.

Casey looked back down at his food. "Gabby and I decided to try and get pregnant again, start fresh with a child of our own, not like Louie that the birth family could take away again...around the time we went to the doctor and he told us that it would be too risky for her...I started thinking something seemed off. We hadn't been actively _trying_ to get pregnant before that...but we weren't using protection either. I guess we just thought sooner or later something would give and when it did, we'd just jump into it like everything else."

Kelly nodded, not wanting to interrupt, but wanting Casey to know he was following so far.

"Before we found out it was too risky, I started thinking...maybe it's me, maybe..." it was embarrassing to talk about, that alone had been painful enough to think about before he knew the truth. "I thought maybe my sperm was slow...too old...whatever you call it. I decided to look into it and see if there was something I could do to...get the ball rolling. I didn't tell Gabby, I didn't want to get her hopes up...and I didn't want her to be disappointed in me." He laughed bitterly, "that's a joke, isn't it?"

Kelly just looked at him, both sympathetically, and silently inquiring him to continue.

"Must be a lot of guys with similar problems because it took forever for the doctor's office to actually get a spot open for me to come in and get tested," Casey said. He sighed, "And when the doctor said there was _no_ chance I could ever have kids..." he looked off to the side and his eyes became distant. "I don't even remember leaving the office...I just remember sitting in my truck, wishing it was all a nightmare. I don't even know when it finally dawned on me...if I couldn't have kids...how the hell did Gabby get pregnant the first time?"

Finally, Casey lifted a spoonful of soup out of the bowl and swallowed it. Severide hoped they were starting to move forward now, but he could easily see this conversation taking Casey right back to the brink again.

"Hallie...all the time we lost because she broke up with me because she couldn't afford to get pregnant during her residency...if I'd gotten tested back then...it'd still be the worst news I ever got, but we could've been together a lot longer than we were...we would've had so much more time together."

"I'm sorry, Casey."

"Who...who ever thinks when they're 30...that they need to get tested to see if they can even have kids?" Casey asked. "People have them into their 50s, 60s, I can't ever have _any_ , it wouldn't matter if it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it's never going to happen..."

Casey dropped his spoon and pressed his hand against his eyes as he started crying again.

Severide put his spoon down and got up, went over to the other side of the table and pulled Casey's chair back and helped him up. "Come on, Casey."

Casey weakly resisted and got out a few half audible protests, Severide didn't know what it was Casey thought they were doing but he doubted it was what he had in mind.

"I'm gonna put you in the bedroom, I'll take the couch tonight," he told Matt.

Kelly walked Casey into the bedroom, he hadn't bothered to make the bed that morning, half the time he never did. He eased Casey down onto the bed, then took his shoes off and drew the covers up on him.

"Just take it easy and try to get some sleep, you'll feel better in the morning."

"No I won't," Casey replied, "tomorrow I'm still going to be as useless as I am now."

"You are not useless, Casey."

Matt looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and asked, "What good's a man that can't have kids?"

Severide offered a small, sad smile. He could see through the conundrum of Casey not wanting Gabby to get pregnant, to save her life, no matter how long they might be married, and until now that was still facing the possibility of their whole lives together, but still reserving his own biological right to have children, whether he actually did or not, it was the ability _to_ do it that had mattered so much, and now it was gone. Most guys, regardless of if they actually wanted kids or not, still placed high value on being _able_ to have them, the only guy they knew who had actually and willingly gotten snipped was Herrmann, and that was after he'd already had five kids. Maybe it was an archaic view but society in general still saw more purpose in women _and_ men who _could_ have kids, versus the ones that couldn't, not just the ones that didn't, and even if you knew better, it had been ingrained in you your whole life, it was a hard viewpoint to break away from. It was a sense of identity, you could pass on your genes and in a sense yourself into the next generation, into future generations, a hundred years, five hundred years from now, a part of you would still be alive, your family name carried on. Now it was never going to happen for Matt.

"It's going to be okay, Casey," Kelly told him. "You just get some rest." He leaned over and kissed Casey on the cheek. Casey took enough time out from his grief to grimace and respond, "You need to shave."

Kelly laughed softly, then he patted Casey's shoulders through the covers and told him, "Get some sleep, I promise it's not going to be as bad as all this."

Casey just sighed.


	2. Chapter 2

Severide had told Casey he'd sleep on the couch that night, but he was starting to rethink decision when through the thin walls of his apartment he could hear Casey start crying again, and in the two hours Kelly waited patiently in the living room, he never stopped. He was torn between the idea that Casey needed room to be alone and process everything and grieve for the life that was no longer an option for him and he realized never actually had been, and the idea that Casey needed a friend with him since he'd lost one of the biggest rocks in his life, his own wife, who despite everything they'd been through, he thought would always be there for him. How was that for a stab in the heart?

Finally Kelly couldn't take it anymore, he threw back the covers and went to the bedroom. The light from outside shone in so he was able to make his way over to the bed. Casey was turned away from him, Kelly reached over and nudged his back. Casey turned his head and looked back at him through one bloodshot eye.

"Want some company?" he offered.

Casey turned his head to the front again and sniffed as he moved over so Kelly could slip in beside him. Severide pulled the covers up and reached over and placed a hand on Casey's shoulder. "You've got to calm down, you're going to be sick. Casey, I am so sorry about everything, I know you always wanted kids, and I know you would've made a great dad."

Casey murmured something over a choked sob but Kelly couldn't make it out.

"What'd you say?" he asked.

Casey rolled over, revealing the entirety of his bright pink tear streaked face, and told him, "Nancy if it was a girl, after my mom...Andy if it was a boy, after Darden."

Kelly closed his eyes as he took that in. He should've known Casey probably wouldn't be this upset just over the idea of kids in general, he'd actually thought it out enough to have the names picked, and with that no doubt came endless thoughts about everything that would ensue with parenthood.

Severide reached over and pulled Casey into his arms and held him while he cried.

"I'm sorry, buddy, I'm so sorry."

* * *

Casey had finally fallen asleep around 2 in the morning. By 8, Severide entered the room with a mug of coffee, and looked at his friend who was still in a dead sleep, and watched the even rhythmic movements of his body as he slowly inhaled and exhaled. As much as he hated to do it, he went over and woke Casey up.

"Hm-hm-huh?" Casey grumbled as he slowly opened his eyes.

"Here," Severide held out the coffee for him.

Casey maneuvered under the covers and sat up on his knees and took the steaming mug from him and said in a tired, hoarse voice, "Thanks." He took a small sip, swallowed it, then took a longer gulp.

"Go take a shower, you'll feel better," Kelly told him.

Casey slowly nodded, "Thanks."

Matt stumbled out of bed, dragging half the blankets with him, Kelly yanked them back and separated them from his friend as he zombie walked to the bathroom.

* * *

Casey let the hot water pour down on him and felt it slowly revive him, he stayed in the shower far longer than he should've. Half the time he stood against the wall under the shower head and let it beat down on his back. The other half of the time he sank down onto the floor and sat under the bombardment of hot drops that made his eyes sting but otherwise felt like his body was being purged. The events of yesterday slowly came back to him but in the moment it all felt so distant, as if the whole day had just been a nightmare. He knew it wasn't, but somehow everything didn't feel so hopeless right now.

With much reluctance he finally shut off the hot water, stepped out of the shower, dried off and got dressed. When he exited the bathroom and stepped into the kitchen, Severide was waiting with two full plates.

"I don't care what you say," he told Casey, "you're eating today. I'm not going to stand by and watch you make yourself sick."

Casey took one of the plates loaded down with bacon, scrambled eggs and toast and mumbled an uncertain, "Thanks."

Kelly waited until they were both sitting at the table and actually saw Casey take a few bites before he said to him, "Can I ask you a question?"

Casey looked at him, dreading what it might be. "Sure."

"I know that you always wanted to have kids of your own, and I'm sorry that's not going to happen now...but is there any reason that you believe you wouldn't be able to love someone else's kids as much as you would your own?"

"Of course not!" Casey looked at him, "why would you say something like that?"

"Okay, so, adoption's still an option, or...if you met a woman who already had kids, that could work too, it wouldn't be what you had planned but you could still have kids, you could still have a family."

"I know," Casey said with a groan, "I just always thought Hallie and I...or Gabby and I...could just have our own and that'd be the end of it, that there wouldn't be any _need_ for alternative options."

This Severide knew to be true, having a family and raising kids was one of the few things Casey had consistently talked about ever since they were in the fire academy together. It always surprised Kelly for all Casey planned for it that it never came up. Now he knew why.

"Everybody else has kids," Casey's voice interrupted Severide's thoughts, "Herrmann has kids, Mouch has a daughter, Boden has a son...I have nothing."

"Everybody _doesn't_ have kids, Casey," Kelly told him, " _I_ don't, Cruz doesn't, Otis doesn't, Tony doesn't, Capp-"

"Capp's not mentally old enough to have kids," Casey responded.

"So it's not just you," Kelly continued, "hell, a _lot_ of us could all be in the same boat and just don't know it, none of us ever got tested. Casey the difference is you're the _only_ one who _always_ knew what he wanted."

Casey slowly nodded and sighed, "And I'm never going to have it."

"I'm sorry, buddy, I know this sucks...but, just because something _doesn't_ turned out as planned doesn't necessarily make it worse," Kelly told him.

Casey laughed humorlessly, "Worse? How's this for worse? On top of finding out there technically never was any baby even though we went through the full grieving process for it, then I have to find out it wasn't even mine. I have a wife who's always on my case about not supporting her ideas, and she's cheating on me with...I don't even want to know who. How...how do I go back and face her?"

"I'll go with you," Kelly said as they finished eating and got up from the table.

Casey shook his head, "You don't need to do that."

"Sure I do, I can act as the moderator, besides, somebody has to be there to pull you off of her," Kelly told him.

"I'm not gonna do _that_ ," Casey said.

"Then you can pull _me_ off of her," Kelly said, "I'm pissed off, I want answers."

"How do I even talk to her?" Casey asked helplessly. "It never occurred to me that this could ever happen. What do I even say?"

"'Get out of my house, bitch' would be a good place to start," Kelly suggested.

Casey sucked in a pained breath and squeezed his eyes shut and groaned, "I can't do this."

Kelly reached over and squeezed Casey's shoulder assuredly, "I'll be with you, it's going to be alright."

Casey looked at him, and latched onto Severide in a desperate hug. He felt Kelly's arms around his back, he felt _some_ sense of stability.

"Let me handle it," Casey told him. He didn't have any idea how he was going to do that, and he was grateful that Severide handled the confrontation yesterday because there was no way he could've done it, but he didn't want Kelly flying off the handle and making things even worse. Although just _how_ things could get worse now, he didn't know. His marriage was over, even if Gabby didn't know it, he did, he'd been able to put up with a lot from her over the years, but this was unforgivable. He could never trust her again, and love without trust wasn't enough for a relationship to survive. He knew that. It killed him to admit it, but he knew it.

* * *

Casey pulled his pickup up to the curb outside his apartment, and put the truck in park. The two men sat there and looked at the door.

"What do you think she'll say?" Kelly asked.

Casey shook his head. "Doesn't matter...I don't really feel like listening."

Severide turned towards him and asked, "You're really gonna let her have it this time, aren't you?"

Casey looked at him, half confused, "You sound like you're enjoying this."

"She's been getting away with crap for years, I figured sooner or later you'd push back, I just hoped I'd get to see it," Kelly said, "I know you're too nice a guy to tell anyone about it after the fact."

Casey found himself trying to suppress a smile as he shook his head and said in a somewhat amused tone, "You're sick, Kelly" a small laugh tore loose as he continued, "You need help, you know that?"

"Come on," Kelly reached for his door, "let's do this."

Casey knew no matter what happened, this was going to be an ugly mess, but he knew Severide was right, there wasn't any point delaying the inevitable. He and Gabby were going to have it out, they were both going to forego talking and just start screaming at each other, and a lot of stuff was going to come out, some stuff they didn't mean, a lot of it they did. But once that was all over, what then?

"Come on, Casey!" Kelly called over to him, "let's go!"

"Let me handle this," Casey told him as he went up to the door.

Casey unlocked the door and pushed it open. "Gabby, we need to talk." He looked around and didn't see her. "Gabby?"

Casey stepped into the apartment and Severide was right behind him, both of them looking around the place slowly, as if they might miss something.

"Come on out, Gabby!" Kelly called.

"Gabby?" Casey went over to the kitchen. No sign of her there either.

A knot was slowly starting to form in Casey's stomach as he considered the possibilities. He flashed back to Rebecca Jones' death, when Gabby got the call that her body had been found, and she'd left a note for her.

"Gabby?" Kelly knocked on the bathroom door and opened it. Nobody there. It looked like nothing in the room had been touched recently. The sink was dry, the tub was dry, the soap was dry, the shower curtain was bone dry.

"Gabby?" Kelly heard Casey's voice call out from the bedroom, then heard a horrified scream, Kelly turned and ran to see what was the matter.

"What is it, Casey?" he didn't stop quick enough and knocked right into Casey who just stood in the doorway.

The room hadn't been ransacked but it was obvious that somebody had been there. The nightstand on one side of the bed had been cleared off, the closet door was open and Gabby's clothes had been taken out of the left side, and the big suitcase she kept at the bottom of the closet was gone.

The two men just stood in the doorway and looked around the room and slowly took all of this in and slowly realized what it meant.

"An admission of guilt," was the first thing that Kelly thought of. "If she thought she could've argued her way out of this mess, she would've been here waiting. She knew she couldn't...so she ran."

Severide glanced around the room on the nightstands, the dressers, anywhere that seemed a likely place, and noted however, that her wedding ring was nowhere to be found. Apparently she took that with her too.

Casey felt his legs getting wobbly, and he groaned, "I need to sit down."

Kelly caught him just before he fell on the floor and walked him five steps over to the bed to sit on the edge of it.

"I really am an idiot," Casey quietly murmured as he looked at the floor, "I really thought she'd be here when I came back...why? Why would she?"

"Hey I didn't think she'd turn tail and run this fast," Kelly told him, "I didn't think she was _that_ smart."

Casey sat there for a minute feeling like he was in a state of shock. When he opened his eyes again he looked up at Kelly and said, "It really is over, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so," Severide responded with a small shrug. "I'm sorry, Casey."

Casey looked down to the floor for a minute, then he raised his head uncertainly, and only got out, "Kelly..."

Severide seemed to know what it was Casey was going to ask, he beat him to the punch and told him, "I'll stay here tonight."

Casey looked around the room and said, "I can't stay here."

"You can come back to my place," Kelly told him.

"No, no," Casey shook his head, "If you'll just stay here with me tonight...tomorrow I'll find a new apartment...I can't stay here...too many memories."

"You could always stay with me while you looked," Kelly said.

Casey looked around the room and commented, "I'm all alone now. No wife... _never_ going to have kids...I'm going to die alone."

Kelly sat down beside him on the edge of the bed, "Don't talk like that. The right woman's out there somewhere..."

"I thought Hallie was the right woman...I thought Gabby was the right woman...I'm tired of looking, no good ever comes of it," Casey groaned.

"Casey, there're a million women in Chicago-"

"And how many have _you_ slept with?" Casey remarked.

Kelly ignored that since he knew Casey was in pain right now, and he continued with his original statement, "You'll find the right one someday, and you'll forget all about this."

Casey hung his head low and shook it, "No I won't."

"Okay maybe not forget entirely, but you'll get past this, and it won't hurt anymore, it'll just be a distant memory."

Casey's chest rose, and fell, and his breath quickened as he asked, "Who's going to want a guy who can't have any kids?"

Kelly slipped an arm around Casey's back and told his friend, "You've got to give them more credit than that. There're a lot of women that don't want kids."

"I don't _want_ to be with a woman that doesn't want kids!" Casey told him.

At any other time Severide might be tempted to jokingly comment on how picky Casey was, but he knew now wasn't the time.

"It'll be alright, Casey," he told him, "someday you'll meet someone else...who you _should_ be with."

* * *

8 months later-

Kelly woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing on the stand by the bed. Grumbling to himself, he reached over and picked it up, and saw Casey's name on the screen. He also saw that it was 1:45. What the hell?

"Hello? Casey, what's going on?"

There was some static and noise, then Casey's voice, which didn't sound quite right, it sounded like he was drunk, "I'm coming over, I need to tell you something."

"Are you okay?" Kelly sat up in the bed, trying to think what could be going on.

"I need to talk to you, I'll be there soon."

"How soon is 'soon'?" Kelly asked.

The line went dead. Then he heard somebody beating on his front door. He was seriously going to have to talk to the super about getting the buzzer fixed so any random psycho didn't just waltz in off the street.

Stumbling through the dark, Kelly reached for the light switch in the living room as he headed over to the door. He undid the locks and pulled the door open. Yep, Casey had been drinking, and if Kelly had to guess, heavily. In the back of his mind, Severide remembered that they'd just had New Year's Eve a couple days ago, it looked like Casey was still celebrating.

"You're up," Casey sounded surprised.

"You called," Severide responded, "are you okay?"

"I need to talk to you," Casey said as he sidestepped Kelly and showed himself in.

Severide turned around, feeling completely lost. "What is it?"

Casey turned to face him and out of nowhere he dropped the bombshell, "I asked her to marry me, she said yes!"

The next thing Kelly was aware of was Casey's arms wrapped around his neck and the full weight of his best friend just about to knock him down. He felt his eyes bug out and felt the wind knocked out of him, and he also heard the unmistakable rapture in Casey's voice, clearly he hadn't been drinking to drown his sorrows tonight. Severide felt his neck being jerked as Casey shook him, repeating over and over as if he couldn't believe it, "She said yes, she said yes!"

Severide put his hands on Casey's shoulders to push him off of him enough to look him in the eye and ask, "Who?"

Casey answered, "Linda Clawson."

It took Severide a minute to put it together. She was a woman Casey had met two months ago right after his divorce was finalized. They'd been seeing each other somewhat regularly, and maybe Kelly should've put it together quicker than he did, but he didn't think that they'd gotten _that_ serious yet, Casey had never said anything about proposing to her. Everybody at 51 had met her a few times, she was a blonde woman in her late 30s who wore blue jeans and didn't seem to own a single shirt with the sleeves still attached and who spoke her mind, but none of them had been around her enough to form any real opinion about her. What they did know was she seemed friendly enough, and she had seven kids, none of them her own, five of them were already teenagers. The last Kelly heard, they were still in the process of half the kids wanting nothing to do with Casey. So either they warmed up to Casey really quick, or they'd just gotten engaged and hadn't told the kids yet.

"Did you give her a ring?" he asked.

"Uh...no," that slightly dampened Casey's otherwise excellent mood, "I didn't have one."

Kelly wasn't sure why, but it seemed to him a proposal without a ring wasn't _as_ binding, and there was still a chance to back out if Casey changed his mind once he sobered up.

"Did you hear me?" Casey asked, and pointed to his lips with both index fingers, "We're-getting- _married_!" He lunged at Kelly again and hugged him and was practically bouncing with excitement.

Kelly smiled and patted Casey's back with both hands and told him, "I'm happy for you, Casey."

"Thank you," Casey told him, sounding surprisingly sober all of a sudden, "thank you for getting me through everything. You knew this day would come."

Kelly furrowed his brow, "I did?"

"Yeah," Casey pulled back, "you said I'd get past Gabby, and meet the right woman...you were right, thank you."

Kelly shook his head, "I didn't do anything."

"Yes you did," Casey told him. "You got me through the worst point in my life...I love you, Kelly," he leaned in and kissed Severide on the cheek.

"Don't let Linda hear that," he replied as he raised his shoulder to wipe his cheek. "But Casey, you've only known her for two months, don't you think that's rushing things a bit?"

Casey looked him in the eyes and said in all earnestness, "I waited with Hallie, I waited with Gabby...what did it get me? I love her, Kelly, I love her...and she loves me...I love her kids..." Casey's inebriated eyes started to well up with tears as he told him with a sad smile on his face, "Even if they never call me 'Dad', it's better than anything I could ask for."

Severide smiled more genuinely now as he felt his own eyes starting to sting, "I'm really happy for you, Casey."

Casey drunkenly smirked at him and hugged him tight.

* * *

Kelly was aware of a few different things at the same time, one, his neck was killing him, two, his feet were cold, three, somebody had their head pressed against his collarbone. He opened his eyes and realized he was on the floor of his living room, he looked down and saw Casey had fallen asleep against him and was using him as a pillow. He was out cold but still had a small smile on his face.

"Casey," Kelly shook his shoulder, "Casey, wake up. Hey Casey, you alright?"

Matt slowly opened his eyes and looked around, and sat up, "Hey, Kelly." He was obviously hung over, but not severely, but he was far more sober now than he had been last night.

Severide sat up as well, and asked him, "Casey, do you remember what happened last night?"

Casey thought back, and his smile grew as he nodded, "We're engaged. I asked her to marry me, she said yes..."

"How much did you have to drink last night?" Kelly asked.

Casey groaned as he rubbed one side of his head and responded, "After Linda said yes, we had a few drinks to celebrate."

Well that cemented it, any chance this was a drunken misunderstanding or fling just went out the window.

"I know we haven't been together that long," Casey told him, "but I don't care, I love her. It's right this time."

"I'm glad to hear it," Kelly said.

Casey looked at him with bloodshot eyes that were alert, but looked concerned, "You'll be there, won't you? You'll be at the wedding?"

Severide paused, and told him, "Of course I will. But Casey...when _are_ you getting married?"

Casey opened his mouth to answer, then he said in total honesty and confusion, "I don't know."

Kelly found himself laughing.

"Congratulations, buddy," he reached over and hugged him.

Casey pulled back and looked at him, "I meant what I said last night...you got me through everything after Gabby...you wouldn't let me give up. Thanks, Kelly."

"Don't mention it." Severide paused for a moment and laughed. "I just thought of something funny."

"What's that?"

"Herrmann was the first one of us to get married, and he has five kids...now you're getting married and you're already going to have seven kids."

Casey snorted as that realization hit him.

"And maybe they won't call you 'Dad', but give it a couple years and the oldest ones will be having kids, then they'll call you 'Grandpa'."

Casey busted out laughing. "A 40 year old grandpa...I kind of like that." He looked at Kelly and told him somberly, "I'm doing the right thing this time, Severide."

"I'm happy for you," Kelly said.


	3. Chapter 3

8 months earlier-

Kelly stayed with Casey that night at his apartment, and he wound up staying with Casey through the rest of the week as he found another apartment, and helped the Truck captain get moved in, and then wound up staying the first couple nights there too, insisting that he was helping Casey 'break in the place'. It was obvious that Casey was depressed by everything that was going on, and with every passing day he put up less of an effort to hide it. Kelly had taken the liberty of calling Boden and given him a very washed down version of events, summing it up as little more than Casey and Gabby were getting divorced and Casey was taking it particularly hard right now and needed to take the next couple shifts off. Boden having his own sordid history of divorces said he understood and gave Severide the message to tell Casey to take as much time as he needed.

Casey hadn't had any objection to Severide bunking with him that first night at Kelly's apartment, and he didn't seem to have the energy to object now, and Kelly had no idea which way to take that but decided it might be in his best interest to keep an eye on Matt. Casey was still awake every night when Kelly finally went to sleep, awake being a loose term, his eyes were open and he stared blankly at the wall or the ceiling, but he didn't seem to actually _see_ anything. He wouldn't talk about what had happened and Kelly wouldn't push, if Casey _was_ going to talk about it, it'd have to be his decision, and right now he was doing his best to avoid that. A couple times Severide woke up in the night and Casey was gone, and he found him out in the living room curled in a ball on the couch mindlessly watching TV, looking every bit like the living dead.

When Casey moved, he'd mentioned to Severide leaving some of the furniture behind and buying new, and Kelly could guess why, Casey left behind the bed and the couch. In buying new, he'd picked a couch with a hide-a-bed in it, so Kelly forced him to get up long enough to take off the cushions and pull out the bed so they didn't have to sit up watching TV all night, and once again he'd stayed with Casey all night because right now he didn't trust his best friend to be alone. And Kelly _knew_ that when Casey did finally go back on shift, it would not be easy, not merely because of Gabby's absence and the less than quiet firehouse chatter about it all.

And he'd been right. Casey's first time back on shift, things had been tolerable until they responded to a call, a family pinned in their car at the site of a collision. The car was totaled but they'd managed to get the family out with little trouble and it was a huge relief to everyone to find the parents and kids had only sustained minor injuries. Kelly had guessed what was coming, he looked over and saw Casey staring at the father with his kids, and he could practically see Casey's blood boiling in his veins as he turned around and walked off. The same thing happened during a couple other calls they responded to, two parents and three kids trapped in a house fire, then another family in a car crash perilously close to the edge of an overpass. Each time, luckily, they got everybody out okay, but Casey looked like he was about to lose it. Kelly watched all this, and said nothing at the time. Instead he waited until that night when everybody else was in the bunk room asleep, he left his quarters, went over to Casey's, knocked lightly, and stepped in. The room was dark but he could make out Casey's outline sitting up on his bunk.

"You want to talk about what's going on, or are you going to do this every time we respond to a family emergency?" Kelly asked.

Casey didn't move from where he sat, but he responded, distantly, "I'm as bad as Gabby."

"Huh?" Kelly asked as he found Casey's chair and sat on it and turned to face the voice.

"I was okay with the idea of adopting somebody else's kid, for her sake, because _she_ couldn't have kids...because it was too dangerous _for_ her to have kids...as long as I thought I could have my own at any time, it didn't bother me...now..." Severide could hear the tears in Casey's throat. "I just can't stop thinking about it...I'm just as bad as she was."

Kelly got up from the chair and found his way over to the bunk and sat down beside Casey, "No you're not, you're still in shock and haven't come to terms with everything yet. Maybe coming back this soon was a mistake..."

"I need to do _something_ , I'm going crazy sitting around the apartment all day," Casey told him.

"Maybe you need to take some time off, get a change of scenery, go away for a while to take it easy," Kelly said.

"And go where?" Casey scoffed, "Your cabin?"

"Anywhere, anywhere that can take your mind off Gabby and..."

"Anywhere I go, there's going to be women, and there's going to be kids, something I'll never have and something I have nothing to offer," Casey bitterly responded.

"Casey...this would be a lot easier if you didn't look at every single woman as the potential Mrs. Matt Casey...what's wrong with just hooking up with a woman for a good time and see where it goes?"

"That's what _you_ do," Casey told him, "it's not me."

"Would it kill you to try?"

"Have you _seen_ the news? It very well could," Casey responded.

That got a small laugh out of Severide.

Casey sighed and Severide could make out him dropping his head to his chest. "My life's a mess."

"I know..." Kelly reached over and slipped his arm behind Casey's back and pulled him towards him, "I'm sorry that there's nothing I can do to make you feel better...but I promise you it won't always be this bad."

Casey intertwined his fingers and pressed the sides of his hands against his mouth and groaned. Kelly heard a muffled, "I don't think I'll survive till that point."

Kelly slipped his other arm around Casey's chest and held his best friend tighter.

"You want me to stay with you tonight?" he asked.

"No," Casey moaned, "I want my life back the way it was when I didn't know my whole life was ruined."

There was a pause, then Kelly asked again, "You want me to stay with you?"

Casey tried to take in a slow breath but the sob behind it was audibly clear, Kelly felt more than he saw Casey slowly nodding his head in reluctant agreement. Kelly softly patted him on the back and quietly responded, "Okay."

* * *

Kelly had managed to talk Casey into taking the next shift off. The next three days at Casey's apartment he steadily became worse. He slept later each morning, became more withdrawn into himself, spoke to Severide less than before, by the third day he refused to even get out of bed, when the sun came up and poured in through the window, Casey's only response had been to pull the covers up to his hairline to block out the light. Severide had been watching Casey quickly escalating into this downward spiral, and wasn't sure how to handle the situation, but finally decided he was going to fake his way through it and see what happened.

11 o' clock and Casey still hadn't gotten up, but he was awake. Severide entered the room and simply told Matt, "I have done everything that I know how to do to try and help you through this...if you don't get out of that bed in the next ten seconds, I'm coming in there."

That wasn't enough to get a verbal response from Casey but it was enough for him to lift his head off the pillow and raise one eyebrow. Severide mischievously swayed his body from side to side as he inched his way closer to the bed and told Casey, "You better get up, I'm coming in after you and then we'll _really_ see how long you can stay in there."

Casey's eyes widened slightly in curiosity, but otherwise made no indication he was even aware what Severide was doing. Severide managed to keep a straight face as he shifted his weight from side to side and taunted Casey as he got closer and closer to the bed, before finally jumping on the unoccupied side. The sudden weight made the mattress bounce like a waterbed for a few seconds, Casey still just looked at him, scarcely even cracking a smile.

"Okay, Casey, here's the deal," Severide told him. "You want to lay in this bed all day and mope, that's fine, I'm going to stay in this bed with you all day. Tomorrow, if you don't get out of this bed and start resembling a human being again, I'm dragging you out of here and hauling you into the shower, and I can promise you you will _not_ like it."

Casey looked at him and said simply, with almost no emotion whatsoever, "My life feels completely pointless."

Severide sighed.

"I called my mom," Casey told him.

"Why?"

"I told her the news."

"What for?"

"She said it's probably for the best."

" _What_?'

Casey looked at Severide and kept an unwavering tone, but his eyes said everything he couldn't as he explained, "That way the violent genes in our family can't get passed on to another generation."

"I hope you don't make a point of listening to her," Severide said as he pressed his head into Casey's shoulder.

"Maybe she's right," Casey said hopelessly. "My dad was an abusive bastard."

"You're nothing like your dad," Kelly told him.

"How do you know? He died before we even met."

"Because I know _you_ ," Kelly said matter-of-factly.

Casey wasn't convinced. "It all had to start somewhere. His dad was probably a bastard to him and the cycle just repeated, probably the same thing for generations...maybe it _is_ a good thing it'll all die out with me."

Kelly shook his head against Casey's shoulder and told him, "You can't think that way, buddy." Kelly pushed up into a sitting position to get Matt's attention. "Casey, what would've happened if when you met Hallie she'd told you that she couldn't have kids? Would that have changed the way you felt about her?"

Casey was silent for a few seconds, and hesitantly answered, "Maybe...a little..." he thought about it some more and shook his head, "No."

"And which one of you brought up the subject of having kids?"

"I did, of course," Casey added almost resentfully.

"How far into the relationship?"

"...About six months."

"So not right away."

"No...didn't matter, she said she couldn't get pregnant during her residency. That's why we broke up."

"But you got back together."

"Yeah."

"And you were fine with not having kids?"

"That call...the two girls in the car...one lived and one died because they made a split second decision who drove and who was a passenger...I told Hallie we should just start fresh with no expectations."

"Did it work?"

"For a while..."

"Were you happy together?"

Casey nodded.

"Even though you knew kids weren't an option at the time."

"I thought we had more time!" Casey frustratedly exclaimed.

Kelly waited until Casey calmed down and calmly replied, "I know...but were you happy for the time you were together?"

Casey sighed, "Yes."

"Okay, so...what would've happened if you two had gotten married, were together for 20 years, but still never had kids? Would you still feel like your life was pointless?"

"It'd definitely feel like something was missing."

"Missing, yeah, but would you think all your time with Hallie was for nothing?"

Casey shook his head. "Of course not."

"Okay, so now you just know what you're dealing with...you could still have that, Casey, you could still meet a woman and marry her and be together 30 years, what would be so bad about that?"

"But I want _kids_ , Kelly."

"I know...but when you get down to it, Matt...okay...worst case scenario, your DNA line dies out...I know that's hard to accept, but would it matter as long as the Casey _name_ lived on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Say you meet a woman, say you two adopt a kid, he doesn't have your blood, your genes, your family line...but he has your name, so the Casey family tree still carries on...would that be so horrible?"

Casey sighed as he thought about it. "I suppose not."

"Alright, say you two met a girl who was pregnant, who couldn't keep the baby, and was looking for someone to adopt it at birth...you'd be the only father that kid ever knew, would that be a bad thing?"

Casey shook his head. "No."

"I know it's not the same thing as having your own, Casey, but there are still a lot of ways you _could_ have kids...but until that happens, what's wrong with just meeting a woman and just being a couple, instead of planning for the long term range of settling down and raising a family?"

"I don't know...I don't know..."

It was obvious that all of this was more than Casey could deal with right now. Severide reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder and told him, "You've got plenty of time to figure this out, Casey, just take it easy, and _calm down_."

Casey was quiet for a minute, then suddenly, the only thing he said was, "Kelly?"

"Huh?"

Matt turned over and closed the gap between the two of them and clung to Severide and pressed his head against Kelly's shoulder and asked him, "Is this okay?"

"Sure..." Kelly slipped his arm around Casey's back and held him tight, "it's fine."

* * *

True to his word, Kelly stayed in bed with Casey the rest of the day and night. The only time they got up was to make the rounds, use the bathroom, get something to eat, Severide took the food into the bedroom and they propped the pillows against the headboard and ate in bed and watched TV. To be honest it was kind of fun now that Casey was back to making conversation and actually seemed to have some hope for his life again. The next morning, Severide woke up ten minutes before the alarm went off, and before he could grab Casey and jerk him out of the bed by his armpits and make good on his threat from yesterday, Casey threw back the covers and got out of bed. Severide got out, and stood behind Casey and watched as he took a change of clothes out of his drawers, and followed behind Casey as he marched into the bathroom. He stood back and watched as Casey turned on the shower, and while the water was heating, stopped over by the sink, rinsed his mouth and shaved, and shot Kelly a scowling glare as he stripped off his pajamas. He stood in the middle of the room in his underwear and just folded his arms against his chest and glared at Severide until he finally took the hint and left the room.

Kelly went back to the bedroom, made the bed, changed his clothes for the day, took the dishes from last night into the kitchen and alternated between washing them and fixing breakfast for the two of them.

15 minutes later, Casey entered the kitchen dressed for the day, his hair combed, looking like a person again. He even held his arms out at the sides as if awaiting Severide's inspection.

"Well?" he asked.

Kelly looked at him and said only, "We'll see." He dished up their plates and handed Casey one and they sat at the table. There wasn't any real conversation, Severide watched to make sure Casey actually ate his food, he did, and drank most of his coffee. After breakfast was over, Casey got up from the table, as did Severide, who followed Casey as he headed back into the bathroom, and watched Casey as he brushed his teeth.

Matt looked at Severide's reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror and commented over a mouth of toothpaste, "You need a hobby, you know that?"

Coyly, Severide responded, "Watching you _is_ my hobby."

"You're sick," Casey said as he spat out the toothpaste and rinsed his mouth.

"You seem to have made a pretty full recovery though," Kelly commented.

Severide followed Casey as he left the bathroom, and kept a couple steps behind Matt all the way to the living room, when Casey turned on his heel and demanded, "Now what?"

Kelly responded by hugging Casey tight and kissing him on the cheek.

"This is Gabby's loss, not yours," Severide told him.

"Huh?" Casey asked as they pulled away from each other.

"She is _never_ going to find anyone who is as good to her as you were," Kelly told him. " _You_ on the other hand could easily find a dozen women better to you than she was."

Just when Casey thought he was finally past all the emotional breakdowns, he felt his eyes stinging again and felt his throat tighten.

"I'd settle for just one," he responded.

"You'll find one when the time's right," Kelly assured him.

* * *

8 months later-

Kelly stood in front of the mirror on his bedroom wall in a daze, thinking back. Casey had left his apartment a little while ago, whether he'd gone back to Linda, or to tell the news to the others at 51 that he was engaged, he had no idea. Everything seemed like a blur since Casey left.

Those days shortly after Gabby left had been hard to get through, but once they were in the past, Kelly hadn't thought about them much. Gradually Casey came out of the shell he'd encased around himself and started interacting with people again, started going out nights, started having fun again, acting and _looking_ alive, started going back out on dates. They weren't back to back and he didn't stay with any woman for too long, Severide had started to think Casey was taking his advice after all. Then he'd stormed in last night in a drunken mess and dropped this bombshell on him. Engaged. Going to be married. It didn't seem possible, it had all happened so fast... _so_ fast that Kelly hadn't even seen it coming. Casey might've been walking on air right now but Kelly felt like the rug had just been yanked out from under his feet. How had this happened so quickly?


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I want to apologize to everybody for taking so long to update this story, and I'm hoping I can stay on track with it this time. I know by now I've lost some of the original readers, but to the ones that are still here, and any new ones who find this story, I hope you enjoy, as usual please read and review.

November-

Casey was driving back to his apartment, and despite knowing better, took out his phone and dialed Kelly's number. He put the phone on speaker and set it on the dashboard as he drove.

Severide's voice came over the line, "Hey, Casey, what's up?"

"Just reporting in, I just got done at the courthouse, everything's finalized. I'm officially divorced."

"Well that's great, right?" Kelly asked.

Casey smiled briefly, "Yeah, it's great...I'm finally, officially, rid of Gabby."

"Glad to hear it, buddy, you doing okay?"

"I think so...still feels kind of surreal," Casey answered, and glanced out the side window in passing, "things look a little brighter now."

"Come on over, later, we'll have a few beers and celebrate," Kelly told him.

Casey smirked. "Copy that. Hey Kelly, thanks for helping me get through this."

"No problem, buddy, see you later."

"Yeah, bye."

Casey disconnected the call and slipped his phone on the seat beside him. It was a cold day and there had already been a recent accumulation of snow in the streets and in people's yards, but the sun was shining and Casey felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest. He felt _alive_ for the first time in months.

He barely had time to notice the white and gray car on the other side of the road before he realized his truck was veering over the line towards it. He stepped on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the right but realized he'd hit a patch of black ice and despite his attempts to correct it, his truck skidded over to the other side of the road. There was a sickening crunch before he finally dragged his truck to a stop ten feet past the car.

"Oh my God!" he put his truck in park and hopped out and ran back to see what had happened.

The car had originally been painted white but most of the paint had come off, showing only the dull gray metal underneath. The driver side window was down and the only occupant of the car was a blonde woman who despite the chill November temperature, was dressed only in a tank top and a pair of jeans.

"Ma'ma, are you okay?" Casey asked.

The woman shoved her door open and got out of the car. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, did I hit your truck?"

"Are you hurt?" Casey asked.

"No, no," she answered, "are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Oh my God," the woman said as she looked over at Casey's truck, "did I do that?"

Casey looked back and saw the side of his truck was slightly dented from the impact.

The woman was clearly scrambling to figure out what to do next. "Uh, we exchange our insurance cards, right? I've never had to do this before."

Casey's brain was also a little slower to respond than usual, but he finally told the woman with a shake of his head, "Oh it's nothing really, don't worry about it, it's not worth the trouble." It was only then he thought to ask, "What about your car?"

She let out a snorting laugh, "Oh you can't hurt my car."

All the same Casey took a look and saw the metal had definitely been scraped, but it seemed to fair better than his truck had.

"I'm really sorry about this," Casey told her.

"Oh don't worry, it's had plenty of problems," she said. She looked at his pickup again and said with a mournful tone, "Oh but your truck is in much better condition, are you sure-"

Casey saw her reaching into her front pocket, she had a black leather wallet chained to her belt loop, she reached in and took her driver's license out and held it out to him. Just as he started to tell her it wasn't necessary, he got a glimpse at it and saw her name: Linda Clawson, age 39. He blinked and shook his head and told her, "It's not necessary, it won't be any trouble to fix it." Then he thought to introduce himself, "Uh, my name's Matt Casey."

"Nice to meet you," she responded with a sheepish smile, then her eyes widened, "You were an alderman."

"Uh yeah, I was, briefly," Casey answered.

"I thought you looked familiar," she said with a small laugh. "I would've _really_ felt bad if you still were."

That got a laugh out of him, "Well I can't speak for the other aldermen around here but, I'm just...just a regular guy."

The two of them spoke briefly for a couple more minutes and then parted ways. And that was that, until four days later.

* * *

It seemed to get dark earlier and earlier all the time, it was already pitch dark and it was barely past 7 PM. Casey entered the grocery store and headed for the meat section to pick up a corned beef brisket to cook for lunch for next shift. He'd been tied up on a construction job all day and just got home an hour ago and then remembered it was his turn to cook lunch for everybody. The store was brightly lit in comparison to how dark it was outside, the one thing Casey liked about shopping at night was after the dinner crowd it was usually pretty empty. He sifted through the briskets until he found the biggest one in the bin and tossed it in his cart, then he turned to head down the aisle, at the same time somebody was coming out of the intersecting aisle and a full cart collided into his.

"Sorry."

Casey blinked. It was the same woman whose car he'd dinged. If there was any doubt, it was cemented by the fact that once again despite the cold November weather, she had no jacket on and was wearing a muscle shirt.

"Oh it's you!" Linda said.

Casey couldn't help chuckling, "Fancy running into you here."

"Literally," she said as she backed up and tried to turn her cart to head the other way.

Casey glanced at the contents of her cart, typical Thanksgiving preparations: sweet potatoes, jumbo marshmallows, canned pumpkin, evaporated milk, cans of cherry pie filling, several loaves of bread for stuffing, jellied cranberry sauce, a 15-pound bag of potatoes, tubs of Cool Whip, Jell-o mixes, boxes of butter, green and black olives, brown and serve rolls, a bag of pastel mints, a huge package of celery, onions, and a turkey that he'd guess was somewhere around 25 pounds.

"Looks like you're going to be busy," he commented.

Linda laughed, "You could say that." She looked at the lone brisket in his cart and replied, "And looks like you're being smart and taking the easy way out."

"Oh, no," Casey smirked sheepishly, "This is for the guys I work with."

"Must be a big construction company," Linda said.

Casey blinked a couple times and then it hit him and he laughed self consciously, "Oh, no, I do construction on my off-days, I'm a firefighter."

"Really?" she asked. "I've never met a fireman before. I guess this must be one of your busy seasons."

Casey smirked, "Drunk relatives and turkey fryers definitely do _not_ mix. Luckily for me I'm off-shift this year."

"Well that must be nice," Linda said.

Casey half shrugged. It hadn't really dawned on him this would be his first Thanksgiving alone, divorced. Suddenly that word didn't sound as liberating as it had when he'd left the courthouse.

"Well I'll get out of your way," he said as he maneuvered his cart away from hers.

He thought that that was going to be the end of that, but once he got checked out and headed out to his truck, he heard a voice behind him, "Oh, Mr. Casey."

He turned and saw Linda wheeling her cart out of the store and over towards her car, which he hadn't noticed was parked two spaces over from his truck.

"Uh, just Matt," he said as he put the brisket in the passenger side of his pickup.

She left the cart by her car and walked over to him, "I hope this isn't being too forward, are you currently taking any construction jobs?"

"Always," he said with a smirk, "You needing something?"

"Not me," she answered, "The owner of the club where I work mentioned something about getting some work done to expand his office."

"Oh?"

"Hang on," she reached into her pocket, "I got a card somewhere...here..."

She handed him the club's card and he held it up to see it in the street light and felt his eyes slightly widen and his brain froze for a second before he found himself muttering, "This is a strip club."

"Yeah," she answered.

Casey looked at her and tried to get his brain to work. Her arms were well toned, but even though her clothes could be hiding plenty, he just couldn't picture her as a dancer.

The thought process felt like it took several seconds to put together, but it only took a second or two for Linda to catch on and explain, a small knowing smirk on her face, "I work security, not on the stage."

"Oh...well...sorry, I didn't mean..."

Casey felt his face growing increasingly red, and not because of the cold air. He looked at her again and he could actually picture _that_. Linda smiled self consciously and replied, "I'm not proud of it, but it's a job and that's what I need right now."

"Uh, yeah, well, if it's legal that's all that matters, right?"

"To a point," she answered. When Casey didn't respond she asked him, "Is something wrong?"

Jack Nesbitt and his human sex trafficking. Katya murdered in his apartment, his own life threatened, he was kidnapped, nearly killed finding the evidence for Voight to bust him. Yes, something was wrong, but Casey shook his head and reminded himself that that was years ago, that wasn't now, it couldn't possibly happen again, could it? No. That was crazy.

"Uh, no, sorry," he answered, "I actually...I did some work at a strip club once...it definitely left something to be desired, but I'll...I'll call your boss and see what I can do."

"That'd be great, he's been trying to find somebody for weeks and everybody else is backed up on jobs," Linda told him. "Thanks, Matt."

He caught himself half smirking, "No problem...nice to see you again."

* * *

"You got another job at a strip club?" Kelly asked during the next shift.

"I don't know, I need to meet with the owner and see what he wants," Casey said. "I got it okayed with Boden to cut out for half an hour and see the guy."

"Are you okay with that?" Kelly asked. At Matt's questioning look he explained, "I mean cuz of what happened with Katya..."

Casey nodded, "Yeah, I think so...Linda really seems like a nice woman and I don't think-"

"Linda?"

"That's the woman who works there."

"Oh ho ho," Kelly smirked.

"Not like that, idiot," Casey elbowed him, "She's a bouncer."

"Well now I'm _really_ interested," Kelly joked.

"Anyway...if I take the job, I'm gonna need some help," Casey said. Kelly's hand was already raised before the last word came out, Casey let the wind out of his sail by saying, "If I do, I'm going to see if Otis and Cruz are interested."

"Why not me?" Kelly asked.

"Because your ass will never leave the dressing room," Casey told him.

Kelly just sat back in his chair and chuckled mischievously.

* * *

"Well?" Kelly asked when Casey returned later that afternoon.

"I'm taking the job," Casey said.

"You sure you don't need a fourth set of hands?" he offered.

"Kelly, I don't think you have enough blood to reach your hands," Matt replied.

"Very funny."

"Where're Otis and Cruz?"

"Whatever it is, Otis did it," Joe pointed to Brian as they came up.

"What's up, lieutenant?" Otis asked.

"You guys doing anything tomorrow?"

"No, why?"

"I got a construction job I need some extra men to help with," Casey said.

"Sure," Otis shrugged, "We'll be glad to help. What's the job?"

"A strip club," Kelly answered.

"Well then we're _definitely_ glad to help, lieutenant," Cruz said.

"Gee, why doesn't that surprise me?" Casey murmured to himself.

* * *

When everybody was walking into work by the next shift, Cruz and Otis stood out from the rest, stumbling their way up the apparatus floor, both of them with looks on their faces like they'd just escaped from a war zone.

"Geesh, what happened to you guys?" Herrmann asked.

"Don't ask," Cruz said in a 'I'll bite your head off if you do' tone.

"Did something go wrong on the job at the club?" Kelly asked.

"Oh nothing went wrong on the _job_ ," Otis said in a tone matching Cruz's.

"Then what is it?" Hermann asked.

"It's a _male_ strip club," Otis answered, which surprised everybody and had some of them laughing.

"What?" Kelly asked.

Casey was the last one up the apparatus floor and was smirking mischievously as he commented, "I _told_ them to keep their mind on the job and stop peeking in the dressing rooms."

Everybody had a good laugh at the two firefighters' expense who just stalked off to the locker room to get changed for work.

"Did you know that going into it?" Kelly asked.

Casey nodded, "Yeah."

Kelly doubled over laughing.

"Unfortunately we got done, or I would've asked if you still wanted to help," Casey said.

Kelly stood back up and was wheezing too hard to breathe for a few seconds. "Casey you are an evil sadist."

"I know it," he replied with a smirk.

* * *

"So are you doing anything for Thanksgiving?" Kelly asked Casey as they had a cigar on the apparatus floor.

Casey looked down and shook his head.

"What's wrong?"

"It just hit me the other day I'm actually divorced...I'm going to be _alone_ for Thanksgiving for the first time in years, that made it a little depressing," Casey confessed.

"Why don't you come over to my place?" Kelly asked.

Casey shook his head, "No thanks, I don't want to impose."

"You're not, I got a turkey, it's 12 pounds but that's enough for two people," Kelly said.

"Anybody else coming?"

"No. So why not?"

"I don't know," Casey sat on the front bumper to one of the engines and said, "Up till now I thought I was fine with having Gabby out of my life."

"You're not going to tell me you miss her," Kelly sounded outraged at the thought.

"I don't know that I necessarily miss her," Casey said as he fumbled his cigar between his fingers, "I just miss being with someone."

Kelly sat down beside him and told Matt, "Buddy, I love you, but it's been long enough, you need to get out there and start dating again."

"Right, and start looking for the next Mrs. Matt Casey, right? Since that's all I ever do."

It wasn't that Kelly expected things to be different, but the wounds that Gabby's infidelity and the subsequent bombshell from it had caused, were still clear and present even after all this time. He clapped his free hand on Casey's shoulder, "You'll do alright, you just need to slow it down, stop thinking long term and just look for someone to have a good time with."

"That's what you do," Casey replied, "I couldn't do that, I don't know how. All roads lead back to the big picture. If I meet a woman, I start thinking about down the road, if we'd get married, if we'd..."

"You wanna know how you do it? You meet a woman, go out once, see if you like her. If you do, you go out again, nothing serious, if you still like her, take a breather and let it sink in, figure out what you _want_ to get out of it," Kelly told him. "Hey, whether you meet anyone or not, come over for Thanksgiving, it'll be fine."

Casey looked at him through the corner of his eye and nodded, "Thanks, Kelly."

* * *

Casey tried to take Kelly's advice, but he'd been out of the dating pool for so long it was hard to jump back in. He started slow with a little assistance, he joined a speed dating event, and during it he met a couple of women he seemed to hit it off with. Keeping his options open, he went out with both of them on different nights of the week just to figure out what he wanted to do. He had a good time with both of them but he didn't see it going any further and opted out of a second date. He went to a couple of singles mixers, met a few women, went out with them, most only once, a couple twice, and one woman he lasted three dates with, but that was it.

One night, he wasn't sure how or why, but he found himself thinking about Linda Clawson. And immediately kicked himself for it, he'd seen everything she'd picked up for Thanksgiving, enough food to feed an army, or at least everyone at the firehouse, she clearly had a family of her own, and no doubt a husband or a boyfriend somewhere in the mix, a good looking woman like that couldn't possibly be single.

And yet despite all these thoughts, he found himself driving out to the strip club the next night just after closing, and after a few minutes he spotted the blonde woman leaving. He got out of his truck and approached her, "Linda?"

"Who is it? Oh, Matt," she said as he came into view under the street lights. "What're you doing here?"

"I...I'm going to ask a stupid question. Are you married?"

She shook her head. "Widowed."

Casey felt his eyes widen, "What?"

She nodded. "My husband died two years ago...that's why I'm working here, I need the money to cover the bills he left behind."

Casey shook his head and felt himself stepping back, "I'm sorry, I didn't...I'm sorry..." he turned to walk away and head back to his truck before he made an even bigger idiot out of himself.

"Matt."

The voice stopped him in his tracks, and he turned back towards the woman.

"Did you want to ask me out?" she asked.

He opened his mouth and immediately closed it several times before he finally got any sound out. He nodded.

She walked up to him and said, "Well you can probably figure my nights are full, I don't get home from work until 3 in the morning...but...are you free tomorrow afternoon?"

He looked at her dumbstruck for a minute, then finally nodded as he realized what she was asking.

"That's great, so we could go out before I have to go to work," she said. "Did you have anywhere in mind?"

Matt got a very big, very stupid grin on his face as he sheepishly shook his head. She just smiled back at him and said, "Tell you what, why don't you stop here around four and pick me up, and then we'll figure out what to do?"

He nodded like an idiot and answered, "Sure...sounds great, uh...see you then."


	5. Chapter 5

"So how did it go?" Kelly asked Casey during the next shift.

"It was...interesting...if this goes anywhere it's going to be an adjustment to be bringing my date home by 7 o' clock," Casey answered.

Severide was laughing and said, "Usually that's the sign of a _bad_ date."

"And of course the expert speaks," Casey remarked.

Kelly reached over and lightly elbowed him.

"So, is the offer to come over for Thanksgiving still good?" Casey asked.

"Sure, if you want to come over the night before you can help me get it ready," Severide answered.

"I might just do that."

* * *

The first couple times Casey went out with Linda it had been very platonic and in his mind anyway, could actually hardly even be called a date. They went to a bar for a couple drinks, to an afternoon movie or bowling, then stopped somewhere for dinner. It wasn't anything fancy; after the first time, Casey insisted they go to an actual restaurant, he'd named a place and it was only after he said it that he remembered it was a place he and Gabby usually frequented. He hadn't been there since his marriage fell apart and after a while he'd started to forget the things and places they used to go to. But Linda had declined his offer, insisting she was a woman of simple means and didn't want to put him out, so they'd stopped in at a small diner instead, then he dropped her off back at the strip club so she could get ready for work. The first time they'd gone out he'd been so flustered he forgot to even kiss her. She however had not forgotten but all the same the date ended with him just getting a quick peck on the cheek. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but he'd had a better time with her than he had with the other women he'd dated recently, so he asked her out again. They were on their third date before Casey actually remembered to kiss her, and they'd had a couple more dates after that but still, what established relationship they had was currently confined to a PG rating.

It was after Thanksgiving and their 5th date before Casey actually took Linda _home_ instead of back to the club, back to _her_ home since she'd had the night off work. He'd walked her halfway up to her door when she stopped him and led him over to the lawn swing that hadn't been put away yet for the winter.

"I've had a great time with you, Matt, but before things go any further, there's something I need to tell you," Linda said to him as they sat down, nervously twiddling her hands, "And that's going to decide if we actually _do_ go any further from here."

"What is it?" he asked.

She looked at him and sucked in a breath and told him, "I have kids."

"Okay," Casey said, not understanding what that had to do with anything.

Linda let out a nervous chuckle and said, "Well you pass the first part of the test. I haven't dated much since my husband died but usually as soon as a guy finds out I'm a mom, they usually run for the hills, and if that doesn't scare them off, the next part always does."

"So what's the other part?" Casey inquired.

Linda patted his knee and stood up and said, "That's when it gets into the part of how many kids I _have_."

The two of them headed up to the porch but before actually reaching the door, it flung open and the screen door shot out as several kids, black and white, all ranging between 5 and 10 years old, came running out screaming like banshees and shooting silly string at each other and subsequently coating the two adults as well before they took off running through the front yard.

Casey shook off the silly string and asked Linda, slightly confused, "Are _all_ those yours?"

Linda did a double take at the kids who just stampeded past them and shook her head, commenting, " _None_ of those are mine."

They looked at each other curiously for a couple seconds before turning to the door and rushing in.

As soon as they entered the house, Casey saw a couple dozen kids of all different ages filling up the house. Music was blaring, the kids were all talking to one another and completely unaware of who had just walked in. But that changed real quick as Linda walked into the dining room and raised her voice to be heard over the music, "Alright, what the _hell_ is going on here?"

Heads turned, the music suddenly stopped and out of all teenagers in the room, Casey noticed two who particularly stuck out. A girl with curly blonde hair tied back in a ponytail about Linda's size, and a slightly older girl who stood nearly 6 feet tall and had short hair that was almost completely black, both dressed in blue jeans and blank tank tops, and it was a no brainer they must be Linda's daughters since they had a toned build just like her.

"Mom," the blonde girl said, a mild look of panic in her eyes.

"What is going on here, Dee?" Linda asked.

Quickly recovering from the shock of the adults' presence, the blonde girl answered, "Cathy's mom's sick so we moved the party here."

"How long has everybody been here?" Linda asked.

"About two hours," the black haired girl answered.

"Alright, party's over, tell everybody to go home, I need to talk to all of you," she told her daughters. Then she turned around and about bumped into Matt, and she looked at him with raised eyebrows, "You're still here?"

"Yeah?" Matt replied in a subtle 'well duh' tone.

"This has potential," Linda said with a small laugh.

It took a while but eventually the parents came and took the rest of the kids home, leaving just seven, who Linda had them all sit down on the couch and chairs in the living room and she introduced them to Casey, and introduced Casey to them. The black haired girl was named Cecily, she was 17, the blonde girl Dee was also 17, then there was a shorter girl with reddish-tan hair named Marla who was 16, a short for his age 16-year-old boy with cropped blonde hair named Jason, a 13-year-old redhead named Jean, an 11-year-old blonde girl with pigtails named Janice, the party had been for her friend, Cathy's birthday, and a dark haired 9-year-old boy named Peter.

Being a firefighter, Casey relished a challenge, but this was starting to make his head spin trying to figure it all out, and he didn't feel any better about the situation when Dee stood up and announced bluntly, "I don't like him."

To add insult to injury, Cecily also got up and added, "Me either."

* * *

Linda closed the front door behind her and joined Casey on the front porch. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay, I get it," Matt said as he leaned on the wraparound banister, "kids get defensive when somebody new's in the picture."

"My kids haven't approved of anybody I've met since my husband died," Linda told him. "They try to drive them all off, they think they're protecting me."

Casey thought it over and replied, "They may be right."

"You're the first one that didn't run out of here when you saw what you were getting into," the blonde woman said, "why didn't you?"

Casey looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Why would I?"

"You _really_ want to get involved with a woman who has seven kids?" she asked.

"Well, the situation's never come up before, but sure, why not?" Casey replied. "I love kids. Though...these might be a challenge."

"If you last, I'm sure they'll come around," Linda told him. "The question is who can last longer...and are you sure you want to bother?"

"I like you, Linda," Casey looked at her.

"I like you too, but this is a lot of responsibility to take on, especially for somebody already juggling two jobs," she replied.

Casey shrugged it off, "That doesn't matter...I want this to work, but if _you_ don't, I understand."

"I can't promise anything, Matt," Linda said, "My children _have_ to come first."

"I understand."

"But if you want to see where this goes, and you think you can put up with them," she told him, "I'm game."

Casey saw a glint in her eyes as she added, "I'm definitely going to talk to them, I'm embarrassed by how they acted tonight."

"It's not their fault, this is new, it's strange," Casey said.

"You have no idea," Linda replied. "So, are you ready for the next part?"

"What next part?" he asked her.

"Where I explain _how_ this all works," she said. She gestured to the lawn swing and told him, "You might as well get comfortable, this is going to take a while."

* * *

"Her...late husband, was married before and had four kids with his first wife," Casey slowly recounted the details the next night at Molly's as he told Severide about the date, trying to make sure he didn't forget anything. "And he got them in the divorce. And then her brother, and his wife, had three kids of their own...and they were both killed in a car crash five years ago and Linda got custody of them. She, and her husband, legally adopted them, and she legally adopted his four kids, so when he died there wasn't any custody battle from the biological mother."

"Single woman with seven kids, damn you _do_ love doing things the hard way, don't you, Casey?" Kelly chuckled.

"She homeschools the two youngest kids because they have..." Casey trailed off and looked like he'd just lost the word.

"Learning disabilities?"

"Not exactly, but the school they _were_ going to let them fall so far behind, she's had to catch them up two grades in the last year."

"Yeesh. So that's why she works at a strip club at night?"

"Yeah because she has to be available during the day to work with them," Casey nodded, "But if anybody ever reports her to DCFS and they find out what she does for a living, that could be a problem."

"Why? She's a bouncer, she's not a stripper."

"It's the whole guilt by association thing," Casey said, "the social workers could argue it creates a harmful environment for the kids."

"Seriously?"

"Apparently they're very gung-ho on making examples out of homeschool families, even though she's only doing it until they get caught up on grade level, then she's going to re-enroll them in a different public school," Casey explained.

"You sure you want to get involved with this family?" Kelly asked.

"I already am, I might as well see what happens."

"Yeah well you're better off keeping your options open, this is all still new," Severide told him. "Besides, are you sure she's not looking at you for some financial security? Widow with seven kids, that's a lot of bills."

"She doesn't know enough about CFD to know what a captain makes," Casey replied, "It's not that."

"Well whatever makes you happy," Kelly said, "but remember this is still new territory, don't be too upset if it doesn't work out."

"Yeah, I know."

"But since you _are_ seeing her, when are the rest of us going to meet her?" Kelly asked.

"I'll see about bringing her by Molly's some night when she's not working," Matt answered. "Guess it's only fair, I got to meet her family, she might as well meet mine and see if _that_ kills the relationship."

Severide chuckled.


	6. Chapter 6

Casey went back to Linda's house the week after when he knew she had the night off work. The lights were on in the downstairs part of the house, other than that he didn't see any signs that anyone was home. He cautiously made his way up the sidewalk to the porch, and paused after every movement lest the front door burst open and a bunch of kids come stampeding out the door like a herd of buffalo. So far, nothing, he stepped over to the door, waited, knocked and then quickly stepped to the side.

There was nothing.

From somewhere in the house he heard a muffled voice call out, "Who is it?"

He guessed it was safe to go in, he opened the door and poked his head in, "Linda?"

"Matt?" the voice called out from the kitchen, "That you?"

"Yeah, can I come in?"

"Sure."

He stepped in, and still looked around every which way before taking a step, and he walked from the front hall, through the living room, into the kitchen, where he saw Linda standing over the kitchen table, a flour covered apron tied over her shirt, a rolling mat spread out on the table and a metal mixing bowl of cookie dough weighing down one of the corners.

"What're you doing here?" she asked.

"Well I just thought I'd see how, you were..." Casey couldn't help looking around again, and noting the lack of any sound in the house, he asked the blonde woman, "Where're the kids?"

"I got paid so I sent them all out to a movie for the evening," she answered. "Figure while they're gone it'll give me time to get the baking done, it goes faster with eight, but they work so hard all the time, I thought they could use a break."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Matt asked.

She looked at him and asked, "You know anything about rolling cookie dough?"

"Not a thing," Casey admitted.

"Perfect, you're just as qualified as I am," Linda told him.

Casey chuckled.

"Tell you what," Linda said as she handed him a rectangular tray with cutouts in shapes of bells and stars, "I'll roll and cut, and you can decorate."

"Ohhh-kay," Casey said as he set the sheet over the large flour container and spotted the several small bottles of colored sugar crystals.

Linda shook her head as she grabbed a hunk of dough and rounded it into a flat ball, rolled it in the flour and put it on the mat. "My mom could roll a sheet of dough half the size of the table, I've been doing this for 20 years and I've still never gotten the hang of it. I never learned how to do anything she did, baking, sewing, ironing, I am _not_ cut out for this domestic homemaker stuff...the kind of stuff that would _really_ come in handy when you're raising seven kids."

"You seem to be doing alright," Casey commented.

"Yeah, because when I got the kids they were already raised by competent people and so well behaved," she replied, "I never had to put in the hard work at the beginning and actually raise them, I just took over. It's easy when someone else fills in the most formative years, and my husband's first wife and my sister-in-law were amazing people." She shook her head. "I still can't believe she's gone...and my husband _and_ my brother...it's unreal."

"I can imagine," Casey replied, "I'm very sorry."

"Thanks," she managed a small smile. "It's been a hell of a few years."

"Um...I know this isn't really appropriate, and if you don't want to answer, that's fine," Casey said, "but can I ask...your husband...how did he die?"

Linda shook her head, "I don't mind...he was killed in a car accident, I've been fighting with his insurance company this whole time because they insist he didn't die from the accident, but because he had a pre-existing condition of high blood pressure, and they're refusing to pay."

"Seriously?" Casey felt his eyes double in size.

"Apparently they have that right to cancel a policy for things like that...don't get me wrong, we didn't go to the doctor much, but my husband did _not_ have high blood pressure and it had nothing to do with him being T-boned by some drunken idiot doing 80 in a 45 mph zone," Linda told him.

Casey felt himself tense up as it dawned on him that his company may have responded to the crash her husband died in. 2 years ago, who could remember after all the traffic fatalities they responded to?

Linda looked at him and squinted one eye, "Are you okay?"

Casey blinked, "Oh, sorry...uh..." he held up the tray and said, "I think these are ready."

Linda smiled as she took the tray, "They look great." She swapped out the ones in the oven, put the new batch in and then went back to work cutting out more.

"So uh..." Casey cleared his throat, "you mind my asking...you have a picture of him around?"

"There's one in the living room if you want to take a look," Linda said as she wrestled with the dough to get the cutouts to actually separate from the rest of the dough.

Casey stepped into the living room and found a framed picture on top of the TV, it was Linda, her husband, and all seven of the kids. When you were a firefighter, you never forgot the faces of the victims you couldn't save. You might never know their names or what they did, but you never forgot the faces. And he heaved a heavy sigh of relief that he couldn't place the man in the photo.

He put it back in its place, then turned and saw the Christmas tree, decked out in lights, tinsel garland, icicles, shiny balls and homemade ornaments, and a blinking angel on top. And a small assortment of presents placed under the tree.

Casey cleared his throat again as he returned to the kitchen and asked Linda, "Are you set up as far as the kids are concerned for Christmas?"

"Oh yeah," Linda nodded, "they know they're not getting much this year, but I've got that taken care of." There was a small pause before she handed him another tray, "Decorate these, and see how much time's left on the last one."

With the two of them working together they finished the cookies in about an hour, Linda washed up the dishes and set the rolling pin, mat and cookie cutters in the dish rack to drip dry overnight.

"So, you got any plans for the rest of the evening?" Casey inquired.

"Still baking, you any good at making fudge?" Linda asked.

"Uh...never tried it."

"Perfect, we should get along great," she said. Matt chuckled. She added, "That is if you plan to stay."

Casey nodded, "Sure. You mind me asking who all you're making this stuff for?"

"Everybody, neighbors, friends, the people where I work," she answered.

"Lot of work."

"Don't I know it? But once you start, you can't stop, they look forward to it every year," she replied.

"I'll bet," Casey said.

There was a silence between them for a minute before he asked, "So is there anything your kids want for Christmas that you _haven't_ gotten them?"

She looked at him and shook her head and told him, "No, I don't accept charity."

"What if it's just the new boyfriend trying to get in good with the kids so they don't try to kill him the next time he comes over?" Casey responded with a small smirk.

Linda laughed, "I appreciate it, but no thanks, we're doing just fine."

Casey looked at her for a minute, and said to her, "Can I ask another question? Do you even _own_ a coat?"

"In the dining room closet, why?" Linda asked.

"It's just...every time I see you..." he gestured towards her and Linda looked down at herself and realized he was referring to her wearing tank tops in the winter.

"Oh that," she said as she looked up at him, "There are two reasons for that. One is I'm extremely hot blooded, it has to be freezing ass cold for me to even wear a long sleeve shirt, never even mind a coat."

"And the other reason?"

"Well I'm a firm believer in if you got it," Linda flexed her arms, "Flaunt it."

Casey chuckled.

The mood changed as Linda asked him, "What's it pay to be a firefighter?"

Casey blinked. "Why? You interested?"

"I gotta find another job," she told him. "Don't get me wrong, the pay's good at the club and everybody's nice there, but it's just embarrassing, I've been working there over a year and I'm still not comfortable with it."

"What're you looking for?" Casey asked.

"I don't know. I just know what I don't want to do but I also know I can't afford to say no to too many positions," she answered.

Casey thought for a minute, "Have you ever worked as a bartender?"

She looked at him and answered, "Several times, why?"

* * *

"Hey Casey," Herrmann said as the captain entered Molly's, "what brings you here so early?"

Casey glanced around. The bar was up to its usual speed which wasn't a lot of people outside of 51. Severide already had his ass parked on a stool and looked like he'd put a few drinks away, nothing new there.

"Uh, I kind of wanted to introduce somebody to you," Casey said as he turned and pointed to the woman behind him, "Herrmann, this is Linda Clawson. Linda, this is Christopher Herrmann."

"Nice to meet you," she said as she reached across the counter and shook his hand.

"Any friend of Casey's is always welcome here," Herrmann said, tensing slightly at her grip.

"I hope so," she replied. "Actually Matt said you might have a job opening."

"We do?" Herrmann asked.

"Well," Otis cut into the conversation, "we could use someone to help us out...have you worked as a bartender?"

The blonde woman smiled a bit forcefully as she explained, "I'm a jack-of-all-trades, I've worked as a little bit of everything. But actually I was thinking maybe you could use a bouncer."

Otis and Herrmann looked at each other for a minute.

"Well we appreciate the offer, Miss Clawson, but the truth is we don't usually get enough people here to warrant needing one," Otis said. "Most of our customers are just our fellow firefighters and some cops from the 21st District."

"Besides," Herrmann stuck his foot in his mouth as usual as he came out from behind the bar, "Not to be rude, I know women are working in a lot of previously male occupied careers these days, but I'm afraid I can't see how a woman could-"

He didn't get to finish that statement because Linda grabbed him and threw him against the wall. Otis and Capp jumped in, and all it got them was Otis got kicked in the stomach and knocked on the floor, then, somehow, her whole body being quicker than the eye, Linda heaved Capp's body halfway across the counter. As the men got back to their feet she stood with her feet shoulder width apart, folded her arms to her chest and nonchalantly asked, "You were saying?"

"When can you start?" Herrmann cynically asked.

* * *

"Gotta say, I wasn't expecting that," Casey said.

"People think a bunch of horny women can't ever be dangerous, they've never worked security at a strip club," Linda said as they walked out to his truck. "Some of those bitches are downright crazy."

Casey laughed. "I can see why you want to get out."

"Yeah, but when you said bar, I was expecting a place with actual traffic, no offense to your friends but this place looks kind of slow."

"It is...but we like it that way."

"I'm sure, but I don't know if I'd bring in enough working a place like that," Linda told him. "Thanks for the offer, but I think I better keep looking."

They got in Casey's truck and he pulled out of there.

"So what's it take to be a fireman?" she asked.

Casey looked at her and answered, "Months of training at the academy, a _lot_ of patience, you're on call 24 hours at a time, off 48 hours between shifts."

Linda seemed to seriously consider it and finally shook her head, "Nope, no, no good, if I'm gone 24 hours I'll be responding to my own house because the kids will have set it on fire while I'm gone."

Casey chuckled.

"Well, I'm sure between the two of us we can figure out something," he said.

"You're actually planning to stick around, aren't you?" Linda inquired.

He turned and looked at her, "Yeah, I am."


	7. Chapter 7

The days seemed to blend together after that. Off-shift Casey swung by Linda's place whenever he could before she went to work and after she was done teaching the two youngest kids. On shift the guys had stopped asking about her and he didn't offer anything, he was worried he might jinx his luck and thought things might go better in his favor if they didn't pour over the subject.

One day shortly before Christmas, he got a call at 9 in the morning. He'd slept late and was just getting around when his phone rang.

"Hello? Linda?"

"I'm sorry to call you, Matt," she sounded frantic, "Are you at work today?"

He sat up and had to think for a second. "No. What's going on?"

"I hate to ask, but can you come over here?" she asked.

She wasn't making a lot of sense but she did seem to be coherent for the most part, and insisted nothing was wrong, not really. Casey got dressed and drove over to see what was going on. It was a cloudy day that threatened snow at any time and looked more like it was still night. Linda met him on the porch.

"I just got a call from my lawyer, he said he couldn't go into details over the phone, but he needs me to come in right away," she explained as she shrugged her arms into her coat.

"Lawyer?"

"The one handling my problem with the insurance company," Linda said, "they've been stringing me along for two years, so I'm hoping it's good news."

"Okay..." Casey wasn't quite sure what the problem was then.

"I know this is a lot to ask, but can you stay here and just keep an eye on the kids until I get back?" she asked.

Now he got it. "Oh, sure, no problem."

"Oh I'm sure it'll be a problem," Linda replied, wordlessly reminding him of the pre-existing issue of the kids not liking him, "and I wouldn't ask if I had any other options, but there's just nobody else I can ask."

"I think we'll be okay," Casey told her. "Are there any special instructions I should know about?"

"I don't think, wait," Linda said, "Peter and Janice both have to read out loud for half an hour each, they do it every day, it's part of their work for getting caught up to grade level, can you..."

"That won't be a problem," he assured her.

"I think that's it, everybody else is out for Christmas break, the older girls already left earlier and will probably come and go but the younger ones are staying home until I get back. They already had breakfast and I should be back before lunch, basically I just need an adult here who can verify everybody's accounted for and the house hasn't been destroyed."

Matt chuckled, "I think I can handle that."

"Things are still pretty raw with them, so don't be surprised if they pull any stunts to try and drive you off," she warned him, then groaned, "Oh, Dee and Cecily especially, those two are horrible, they're always staging these horrific scenes to scare people."

"Copy that."

"I know it's asking a lot, Matt, but you have no idea how much I appreciate this," Linda hugged him before she headed down the porch steps.

"Good luck!" he called after her, "Hope he's got some good news!"

"So do I!" she replied as she dashed out to her car.

He watched her drive off, then headed into the house, closed the door behind him, looked around and noted the unusual silence. He tilted his head back and looked up to the second floor but didn't see any signs of life up there, though a quick sweep of the first floor told him none of the kids were down there.

"This is gonna be fun," he dryly commented to himself.

* * *

Casey stopped in the kitchen and took a look around. For some reason he couldn't resist the urge to check the burners and make sure the gas was off. Probably just because of all the house fires and subsequent explosions they had responded to over the years. Yep, all off. He checked the oven just to make sure it wasn't on. Nothing there either. He didn't have any idea what Linda's lawyer might want to see her about, but he wouldn't write off the possibility she could be gone longer than she thought. What if she _was_ gone until the afternoon? He went over to the fridge and looked to see what was in there that the kids could eat for lunch if it came to that.

In that moment, something gave Casey the strange sensation he was being watched. He hadn't heard anybody moving around, but he could feel the presence of eyes watching him. He closed the door, turned around and saw the smallest boy standing in the doorway, watching him intently.

"Peter, right?"

The boy nodded. "What're you doing here?"

"Didn't your mom tell you she had to go out?" Casey asked.

"Yeah, what're you doing here?" Peter asked.

Casey rolled his eyes slightly. "Your mom asked me to keep an eye on you guys until she got back. Where is everybody?"

"Upstairs," the boy answered skeptically as he inched his way into the kitchen.

"I might've guessed," Casey looked towards the ceiling, and wondered what they were doing up there, what they had planned for him.

"How long's Mom going to be gone?" Peter wanted to know.

Casey scratched the side of his head, "I'm not sure, she was hoping to be back soon."

He looked down at the dark haired boy and asked him, "What're the odds everybody else will come down if I ask them?"

Peter merely shook his head.

"Okay, can _you_ ask them to come down?" Casey asked.

The boy shrugged, "They don't listen to me because I'm the youngest."

A small snort escaped Matt, "Oh yeah, been there, I had an older sister growing up."

"You did?"

"Yep, there were a lot of times we didn't get along," Casey answered. "Is that how it is for you?"

He shrugged again. Casey felt like sighing, he could tell this was going to be a long morning.

"Your mom said you and your sister had to read out loud today, that correct?"

Peter nodded.

"Okay, is there a book you're working on?" Casey asked.

He nodded again.

"Would you go get it please?"

The small boy rolled his eyes as he turned and left the kitchen. Casey sighed and commented to himself, "I can sense this reaching a roaring stop," and followed the kid into the living room.

Matt heard footsteps and turned to see Janice, the blonde girl with pigtails, enter the room. She looked at him but didn't speak to him.

Peter also noted her presence and called out, as if she couldn't see it for herself, "Janice, Matt came back."

The blonde girl gave a stiff half-hearted wave and just walked by like she didn't see the man.

"She's shy," Peter explained as he dug a book out from the arm of the couch.

"Oh yeah?" Casey asked as he sat down. "What about your older sisters? For instance, is Dee shy too?"

"No, she's just mean," Peter answered matter-of-factly.

That made the Truck captain smirk in amusement, "Well maybe she's really shy but she just acts mean because she doesn't want to say so."

"No, she's just mean," Peter insisted as he sat on the couch beside Casey and gave him the book.

"Is she mean to you?"

"No, just everybody else," the boy answered.

"Is there a particular reason for that?" Casey inquired.

Peter looked at him and answered without missing a beat, "Yeah, she doesn't like people."

"Do you know why that is?" Casey asked.

He just shrugged again.

Casey looked at the book cover and saw it was a kids' horror book from the early 90s, he also noted how well worn the spine and pages were and asked Peter, "Is this your book?"

"No," he answered, "It was my mom's when she was a kid."

"I see," Casey said as he flipped through it. Then he thought of something else and asked Peter, "Does Janice have a different book she reads every day or does she read this one too?"

Peter pointed to the paperback in Casey's hand.

"Okay, go get your sister and let's get both of you done at once," Matt told him.

Peter hopped off the couch and headed into the kitchen screaming, "JANICE GET IN HERE!"

Casey's eyes widened at the pair of lungs that kid had on him. A few seconds later both kids returned to the living room. Casey moved to the middle of the couch and told them, "Okay, let's get on with this. One of you sit on this side of me, the other sit on this side of me. Now how does this work?"

The blonde girl poked him in the arm and explained, "Mom sets the timer and when it rings we're done."

"For an hour?"

Janice nodded, "First she reads a few pages to get us started, she used to have me read first for half an hour and then Peter read for half an hour, but it got boring waiting, so I read one side of the book, and he reads the other side."

Casey thought about it. "Okay, that should be easy enough." He found the bookmarked page and started reading from the top.

He'd no sooner got out a few words before Janice told him, "That's wrong."

Casey looked at her, "What's wrong?"

"You're doing it wrong," she said.

He looked at her and asked, "How am I doing it wrong?"

"That's not the way Mommy reads," Peter said from the other side of him, "she does voices."

Casey turned to look at the boy and repeated questioningly, "Voices?"

He nodded.

"That's right," Janice told him, and explained, a slight lisp breaking through in a few places, "Mom says you really pick up speed if you can hear how the characters would sound to fit their personalities, since in real life nobody sounds like each other, like when you just read pho-neti-cally and everything sounds flat. People don't _talk_ that way in real life, so she says they shouldn't _sound_ that way in a book."

Casey slowly nodded as he thought he was starting to get it, and asked the 11-year-old girl, "And what does this character sound like?"

The two kids got into an argument each trying to imitate a deep gravely voice, perfectly accompanied by humorously cantankerous expressions to fit the character. Casey turned his neck back and forth watching them and it took everything he had not to bust out laughing. "Okay," he told them, "I think I get it now."

He did his best to adequately imitate the gruff voice the kids had done as he read through the dialogue, and since he got no further critiques on his performance, he took that as meaning he must be doing something right.

Casey hadn't been keeping an eye on the time but before he knew it, they'd reached the end of the book. He checked the timer and saw there was still 15 minutes on it.

"Apparently your mom knows what she's doing," Casey commented. "Do you have another one to start?"

"The next one," Peter answered, "It's a set."

"Okay then, get the next one," Matt told him.

Peter hopped off the couch and ran out of the room, while he was gone, Casey heard the front door open and then saw Dee step into the dining room and glare into the living room at him.

"What're you doing here?" she demanded to know.

"Your mom asked me to keep an eye on everybody until she got back," he answered.

"From where?" she asked.

"Her lawyer wanted to see her," Casey said.

She didn't respond in any way, not with words, and not with a movement of her head.

"Dee, can I ask you a question?" Casey asked as he got up from the couch. "Have we ever met before I came here that night you guys were having that party?"

"No," she answered.

"So then it stands to reason I've never done anything to you, right?" Matt asked.

"So what?" she asked.

"Then why don't you like me?" he wanted to know.

"What're you always hanging around here for?" she replied.

"Because I like your mom," he answered. "Why, don't _you_ like her?"

"Don't give me that crap," the teen girl sneered, " _why_ do you like her?"

Casey almost laughed. "Because she's a nice person and she seems to like me."

"Why?" Dee asked.

Casey blanked on the question for a second, then shrugged his shoulders, "Beats the hell out of me."

"You know she doesn't have any money," Dee said.

"I know that."

"You know she has seven kids."

"I know that too."

"Then why are you still here?" the girl asked him.

He looked at her. "Is it really so hard to believe I just like your mom?"

She shrugged, "Nobody else ever lasted this long."

"Yes, so I heard," Casey remembered Linda's comments about the kids scaring off every other man she'd dated since her husband died. Then something occurred to him and he looked at her, "Your dad..."

"He was the one that died two years ago," Dee answered. "Jason, Janice and Peter are her brother's kids."

Casey slowly nodded as everything sunk in.

"My dad died when I was about your age," he told her. Her eyes moved slightly but there was no readable expression on her face. He continued, "We didn't have a great relationship but it was still hard, I can't imagine how hard this has been on you and your siblings. I have no intention of trying to replace your dad, anymore than your dad tried to replace _their_ dad...but I like your mom and I'm going to keep seeing her. Don't you think as hard as she works to keep everything going that she deserves to be happy?"

Dee narrowed her eyes to slits, "Don't turn this around on me, we were fine until you showed up."

"And has that changed?" Casey asked.

She looked at him for a few seconds before responding reluctantly, "No."

"I get that this is an adjustment for everyone," Matt told her, "have you ever known any firemen, Dee?"

"No," she answered flatly.

"Well we don't give up, ever," he told her bluntly, "so you and your siblings want to keep this up, go ahead, but you're not getting rid of me, your mom's the only one who can make that call."

The blonde girl didn't say anything after that, but Casey thought they just might be at a turning point. He hoped anyway.


End file.
